Older
by The Sentinel of History
Summary: The Doctor in the Library would be the youngest she had ever seen. The Doctor with the Bow-Tie was the Doctor as she'd always think of him. But there had been others. Like the one that came to say goodbye.


There was something about the man at the bar that beckoned her.

He wasn't particularly good-looking, his posture was positively awkward and his fashion sense was ridiculously awful. He was a man of average height; the long, thin leather jacket that wouldn't look amiss on a 20th century American biker practically drowned him sitting down. He had long dark hair that fell onto his shoulders in the most unkempt manner, and facial hair that was a stage between stubble and full-blown beard. And yet, and yet...

There was **just **something about him. An air of something intangible, of something extraordinary, a sense of purpose. Something so eerily familiar that she would have ran up to him with diary in hand had she not already known that this man's face wasn't part of the set as showcased in her little blue book. Still, Professor River Song wasn't one to be shy.

"Hello Sweetie, mind if I sit?"

He barely acknowledged her, instead preferring to stare at his hands. She frowned, ordered a drink and stole another glance; she wasn't usually for moody mysterious types – she had enough of that with her husband, for goodness sake – but this man seemed to possess something alluring. And so, she persevered, and sat patiently, waiting for the man to do something.

For twenty minutes they sat there in silence, drinking in tandem. Just as she was about to give up on this weird little man, he turned to face her. This close, her first thought was that she'd underestimated his looks – he really was quite decent under all that hair. Her second was that she'd love to give him a haircut. Her third disappeared in a maelstrom of emotion.

His eyes.

The Doctor's eyes.

It was him!

Brown eyes, like the younger Doctor that dominated so much of her most recent experiences; but tempered by an age and wisdom she had not seen since her earliest days. It was her Doctor, but not younger; _older_. A Doctor that wasn't recorded in her diary, but a Doctor all the same, for no-one could replicate those eyes. No-one.

They stared at each other, and for once River Song was speechless. The older Doctor observed her momentarily, and there was a shadow of a smile breaking on his face.

"One second."

She could only nod glibly as she observed this older, unknown Doctor walking away. She knew of course, from a rational perspective, that there would be a time when the Doctor would be older and without her. It wasn't a big jump to suggest that he might have other faces – who knew how many regenerations he'd end up having? And yet - she had met a multitude of his previous faces, and they had all been in the book. It was more than that though. Their entire time-line – their ridiculous, mental, unjust, liberating and shackling all at once timey wimey relationship – had seemed to see her older and him younger almost with every step they took along their respective paths – so why this, why now?

She was shook out of her thoughts with the familiar – the beautiful – sound of the temporal machinations of the Doctor's time machine, his Tardis, **her** Tardis materialising before her. As usual, he had left on the brakes. The same face walked out the doors, but this time, he was radically different. His facial hair had been trimmed, and strange though it was to see a Doctor with facial hair, she had to admit she quite liked it – she couldn't help licking her lips. The leather trench coat had also disappeared; his shabby fashion replaced with a three piece suit, a long overcoat and – cowboy boots? As well as a Stetson! She couldn't help but laugh. This face seemed to think himself a space cowboy!

He grinned and presented his head to her. The long hair had been curtailed too, apparently to some significant effort – although his hair still remained somewhat messy. Some Doctors were messier than others, no matter how they tried. The Doctor clicked his fingers, and the Tardis doors opened.

"The Singing Towers – we never did actually manage to get there did we?"


End file.
